Here’s What Everyone on Twitter Thought of James Comey’s Performance

James Comey's public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee ended at about 12:45 p.m. Thursday morning, concluding one of the most compelling government hearings in recent memory (insofar as government hearings can actually be compelling). The main takeaways:

Comey definitely thinks Donald Trump is a liar, which is why he took copious notes of each of their interactions -- that he thought it likely that Trump would lie about them later, so he needed to write everything that happened down in detail, right away.

Comey understood Trump's "I hope you'll let this go" line was a direct order to stop investigating Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor, which Comey found highly inappropriate.

Fox News covered the hearing in exactly the manner you'd expect.

James Comey loves to say, "Lordy!"

Last, Donald Trump did not tweet at all during the hearings.

That last point did not go unnoticed:

Fortunately, Trump's son Donald Jr. stepped in to fill that void:

Now let's take a look at how Twitter politicos analyzed the hearing, as it was happening.

Unfortunately, we never did get confirmation that there is or is not a pee tape. However, in much less salacious but probably more consequential news, it looks as though Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice, which is an impeachable offense:

Then we learned exactly what Comey thinks of Donald Trump as a person, particular as compared with his predecessors in the Oval Office:

Comey told senators that Trump dangled his position as FBI director in a private meeting. That's a major ethical breach, which we've learned for President Trump is standard operating procedure:

Apparently the only ongoing investigation the FBI was conducting that interested Trump was the Russia one:

Then we heard about the moment Trump told Comey he hoped he'd let the Flynn investigation go and, more importantly, how Comey interpreted that moment:

We also got a smashing new catchphrase for Comey: "Lordy!"

There was a good deal of discussion as to why Trump fired Comey. Comey was quite clear that he thinks it was because he would not back off the Russia-Trump investigation, even citing Trump's interview with NBC's Lester Holt in which he openly stated that he had been thinking about the Russia scandal when he decided to fire Comey.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions probably did not enjoy this part of the hearing:

Outside the hearing room, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan explained that Trump should be forgiven for his obviously inappropriate behavior because -- this is literally what Ryan said -- Trump was "new to this":

Comey repeatedly urged the senators to take Russia's interference seriously because it's not a partisan issue -- it was an attack on American democracy:

Republican Tom Cotton tried to get Comey to exonerate Trump, but Comey did not give the answer Cotton was looking for:

That's why they tell lawyers you should never ask a question you don't already know the answer to.

During the hearing, we saw a fine example of how the various cable news channels appeal to their respective audiences:

And later it got a bit ridiculous:

President Trump's spokesperson defended him against Comey's characterization by saying something we can't recall ever hearing from an official White House source:

And finally, at the end of the hearing, the last senator to speak, John McCain, asked some bizarre questions that left watchers a bit flummoxed:

And on that note of bipartisan unity, the hearing ended.

But there is one lingering question about James Comey, who we should point out is 6-foot-8-inches tall: